t’s good for you.  It’s bad for you.  It will kill you.  It’s been proven safe.  Don’t combine X with Y or Z.  Let’s not jump to conclusions until all the data is in.  It’s best to be cautious.

It’s a wonder any of us survives. (more…)

Sitting here at my kitchen table, dog at my feet, mug of tea and shortbreads in front of me, I’ve drifted into thinking about connections – connections with people, places, pooches …

I have relatives in Europe and the USA, and possibly in South America.  There are people I know through travelling and writing and there are people I know through connections on the internet.  Some of these connections intersect, split and join in unpredictable ways. (more…)

Some years ago, a group of Australian Aborigines celebrated India’s Independence Day – 26^th January [1].  They thought this much more appropriate then celebrating that day as the date the Aborigines lost their independence when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove (although some sources say it was 25^th January).  Indian independence was seen as symbolic – the kicking out of the British. (more…)

Author: Peter Ralph

Publisher: Melbourne Books, 2007

ISBN: 9781877096952

RRP $24.50,

This is a story that needs to be told again and again.  The avarice and self-serving attitudes of the principle character are depicted graphically and chillingly.  People like Douglas Aspine should be locked up as quickly as possible and ‘re-educated’, before they can do more harm. (more…)

Every now and then we are treated to a thoroughly entertaining film that also carries important messages.  Avatar is such a film.

Most discussion I’ve heard and read has been about the spectacular computer graphics, the amazing scenery, the fast-paced action and the violence.  Only a few people have mentioned the powerful underlying issues the film deals with: corporate greed; corporate-military collaboration; the treatment of ‘people not like us’ as inferior to us; the possibility of a strong connection of a people with their environment; the possibility of a planetary intelligence; connection with a numinous presence. (more…)

The trains in Metroville were all painted bright yellow with green ends.  They had comfortable orange seats and doors that hissed when they opened and closed.  But they were mostly empty.  Metrovillians preferred to ride in their roaring cars to go to work and to go shopping and to take their children to school.

Over the years Metroville grew from a very large town to a small city and then to a very large city.  As it grew, more and more people drove more and more cars and eventually the roads were so crowded that every journey took four times as long as it used to.  Metrovillians complained to the city government, which built beautiful freeways in response. (more…)

Wasting time on the Internet seems to be a part of modern life.  I’m not talking about games or social networks or Googling one’s own name.  I’m peeved about forced time-wasting, struggling with badly-designed web sites.  There is no excuse for this (the bad design, not the bad mood).

I recently spent a fruitless two-and-a-half hours on a site, trying to buy, download and install a European map on a GPS for someone about to travel there.  The best way to describe the experience is to liken it to visiting a building designed by morons. (more…)

Published by Melbourne Books

ISBN: 9781877096660

RRP: $28.59

The reason I’m keen to include this review is that one of my stories is included.

This is the first of what Melbourne Books plans to be an annual publication.

The publisher looked at over a hundred stories and bush poems which had won awards around Australia in the past year and then chose twenty-six of these to showcase some of the best writing being produced in this country. (more…)

The other night a group of us played strip dinner in Box Hill.  It’s like strip poker with the cards replaced by very spicy Szechuan (Chinese) food.  For each course, the first person to call barley has to take an item of clothing off.  As it was already a hot night, no-one had much on to start with, so each of us was determined to persevere for as long as possible.

I need to explain, perhaps, that Szechuan food can be impossibly spicy.  When the first dish arrived (a huge bowl of pieces of white fish floating in yellow oil) the smell alone seared the nose.  Ah, I thought, those green beans will help me cope with this.  How innocent I was.  Those red speckles should have warned me.  The others mopped their brows as I removed one of my shoes.

One down, five to go. (more…)

I’ve never understood the ability of some people to see the likeness of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast or in a banana peel, especially as no two-thousand-year-old likenesses exist of either of them.  I’ve not heard of a Muslim discovering images of Mohammed in a falafel or of a Jew seeing Abraham on a matzo (although, on their fiftieth birthday, some Jews declare that they have finally seen Abraham).

I’d actually like to see Lao-tse in a lychee. (more…)